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PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 9:35 pm 
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Ok here's the context of my question. I own a sunfish and live next to a sizable lake. The lake has several bridges and a mast height limit of 17 ft. My wife won't come on the sunfish with me but we went on vacation and rented a hobie wave in belize. I love it. Way more forgiving vs sunfish albeit a wee touchy to tack in light winds!

I have been researching the idea of finding a used wave which would enable me to take my wife out on our lake if I could figure out a way to comply with the bridge clearances. It's my understanding that the Wave has a 2 piece mast with a composite top section.

Here's my question - is there a way (legitimately) to buy a wave and cut down/alter the top section ~3 ft and get (or alter) a sail so it's basically reefed 2-3 ft? (or buy a smaller sail). Then keep an unaltered top section of mast and unaltered sail for non lake use.

I fully get it would lose sail area and slow the boat a tad. The question is - is this doable?

I really enjoyed the wave. Would love to get one. Thoughts?


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:44 am 
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I think you could do that. The fiberglass section could be shortened from the top. The sail could be cut shorter from the bottom / foot.

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Hobie Cat USA
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:12 pm 
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Is the mast height limit a "rule" or is it just a physical limit based on the bridge heights?

What I'm getting at is that if the only limitation is clearance under a couple bridges, you could probably just sail near the bridge, drop the sail and mast, paddle under the bridge, and then re-raise the mast and sail. The Wave and it's mast are pretty light, so with two on board, I think you could easily paddle the boat and raise/lower the mast.

If the 17 foot limit is a rule of the lake (i.e., boats with a mast longer than 17 feet are not permitted on the lake), then I guess your only option would be to chop the mast and sail, but I think doing so would reduce the boat's performance pretty significantly.

sm


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:36 pm 
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It’s a rule.

It’s also driven by the 3 main bridges which have 17.5” clearance. The lake sections aren’t big enough by my house to enjoy even if i broken mast rules.

There’s two other brudges that are shorter - hence my original sunfish buy. But the sunfish is impossible to put more than one chubby adult on and it’s less stable than a hobie.

My buddy has an adventure island (mast height 16.5’) and it’s fine but I dislike those.

Hence my thought on finding a used cat and doing a customized tweak. If I just want to go fast I can play with my sunfish. I wanted to be able to use our lake with a second Person aboard comfortably. If I lose a little speed I’m ok.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:55 am 
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To state the obvious, there is a difference between the length of the mast and the vessel's bridge clearance. I measured my mast and it appears to be 20' without counting the bob/float attached at the top. Also, the mast base on the front crossbar is significantly above the water line. I don't know the min bridge clearance of a Wave but I'd guess it's at least 22'.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:23 pm 
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Location: Oceanside, California
We have a Wave sail that is reefable already. The bottom panel comes off. You lower the sail and tie off. The concept would work.

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Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
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Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:40 pm 
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Correct. That would be about right. I was intending on skipping the float.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:01 pm 
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The float is very important if you capsize. The boat is VERY stable upside down (turtled). I would not advise removing it. The float will keep it for going turtle (completely upside down).

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Matt Miller
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Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:03 pm 
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Is there a link to the reefable wave sail? How much sail he’s height is eliminated by the reefing?

Also. On the float - in my lake I could go sans float. It can’t totally turtle. Max depth is 13 feet i the middle. In fact I turtled my sunfish sort of and ended up with mud on the boom end. But otherwise point taken on the float.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:00 am 
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You could just deliberately capsize and go under that way. Is it really necessary each time?


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 3:55 pm 
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I think the bottom panel is a couple feet? Just measure from the bottom to the bottom of the second batten up... that is what is removed.

Or get a Hobie Island with a shorter mast and one you can easily set up on the water after going under bridges.

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Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
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Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:15 pm 
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Ok I think I found my donor boat and a game plan and I have a few remaining questions (for Matt)

I found a donor project boat I'm hopefully buying tomorrow and having to ship in 3 pieces. If all works out I'll have an early wave ('1996) with all the parts in tact there with the exception of a few minor bits of hardware. It likely needs a tramp or at least a repair or two the tramp. A little clean up and new stickers too.

The sail needs a repair but the damage just so happens to be the window.....and since that's where I want to reef/cut........no biggie. All in I think I'm going to be at 1500 or so before I get into buying a new sail or a backup comp tip.

So for now I would get this fixed or add a few grommets to reef and hopefully the diminesions work out well enough without painful modification to the sail itself.

Intent after I get tested and fixed is to buy a new zipper reef sail and a second unadjusted comp tip so I can still rig up fully to take other places .

I plan to eliminate the bob for lake sailing but I will affix a float of equivalent displacement hanging downwards from the mast tip. (found other style floats online) That buys me float function for lake to avert scraping bottom mud but leaves me 6" vertically to work with.

So my remaining questions are:

1) What is the zippable reef dimensions? What is the size (vertical luff length) that is eliminated by reefing the stock zip reef sail. Matt - is there a picture of one you can post? I can't find them online with a picture of it. Your other post said to measure one but I don't can the sail yet. You said bottom of sail to 1st batten botom basically? Is that 3 ft or 4 ft?

2) Hypothetically - if I wanted to shorten luff length by 3.5 ft but wanted to not lose as much sail area on the bottom (due to shape) would it be possible to nip some height of the top (thus it gets squared off a tad) as well as remove some off the bottom? Say have a sailmaker take ~1-2 ft form the top of the sail and ~1-2 ft of the bottom? Any thoughts?

3) Jib - could I use a stock wave jib without major issue with the slightly shortened mast? I know that gives me 25 sq ft back of sail area if I lose some on my mod. Plus then I learn to use a jib. :-)

4) What is the average clearance measurement from top of water to bottom of mast when a boat is in the water with no passengers on it? (Trying to add that measurement to needed total mast height and account for the pulley at the top also)

4a) The published 20' mast height excludes the pulley on top right? Or is it including the few inches of the pulley assembly?

5) Any tips on prepping a used boat to ship via yellow truck? Spoke with them and my working theory was plastic wrap mast and tubulars up well, box the loose stuff and rudders, and label each pontoon and wrap the back with the brackets. (How do you guys ship normally?)

Thank you in advance. I can't recall if I mentioned this but I'm working on this with the HOA guy who is on point for lake stuff. If this little personal experiment works out our HOA might buy several new waves for rental/loan on our lake.

Documenting this experiment amongst ourselves to see if this works out well and is feasible beyond my experiment boat. If this works I'd be curious if there an ability to special order the mods I do if they ordered some later.

(Thank you again Matt and others!)


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 10:01 pm 
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PS - The early waves had ugly graphics. Will be scrubbing those pontoons down to bare white and then putting some new stickers on. :-) Plain black hobie decals would look nice. :-)


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:17 am 
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One more thing also occurred to me on the bridge clearance subject - the mast has a little backwards rake on these things depending on how it's adjusted.

How much vertical clearance does one eek out of a few degrees of backwards rake? (The difference between vertical line 20 ft up versus line drawn down from the backwards raked top of mast drawn down?


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